Somewhere deep in Rearden’s mind, as a steady, gentle, inexorable beat, was a man’s voice, saying: By what right?-by what code?by what standard?

They knocked in an even rhythm, every fourth knock accented-and it seemed to her that through the rapid, running clatter of some futile stampede to escape, the beat of the accented knocks was like the steps of an enemy moving toward some inexorable purpose.

I was still faking reality, and it had the inexorable result: instead of protection, it brought you a more terrible kind of ordeal, instead of saving your name, it forced you to offer yourself for a public stoning and to throw the stones by your own hand.